Honlai Technology’s QingBar MP100 is a very small front projector that sports some very high-end technologies. First off: LCoS or Liquid Crystal on Silicon. LCoS technology provides very good pictures and is often rated as better than DLP for reproducing more lifelike (smoother) images. Second: LED. A LED light source is used for the MP100 and that should make it pretty durable and allow the unit to sip power instead of gulping it. The LED lifetime is rated at 20,000 hours, a huge improvement over regular bulbs.

Honlai also has the QingBar MP101 that has connectors for Apple‘s iPod and iPhone allowing you to carry all your video files and then have the ability to project them. Just clip your iPod or iPhone on top of the MP101 and you’re ready to go. Pretty cool.

According to projectiondesign, its F10 AS3D is the only portable high resolution active 3D stereoscopic projector on the market. projectiondesign is planning to showcase the F10 AS3D at the upcoming InfoComm conference that will be held in Las Vegas. The F10 AS3D is based on a single-chip DLP design and is geared for visualization and simulation environments.

The University of Munich in Germany has already installed eight of projectiondesign’s F20 sx+ DLP projectors that have built-in Infitec filters to generate a 3D stereoscopic computer-aided virtual environment (CAVE) visualization system, which is called Four Space 110 and was designed by 3Dims. projectiondesign’s F20 sx+ 3D projector uses passive stereo projection technology. Six of projectiondesign’s F30 sx+ DLP projectors are used at Global Immersion by INTECH Science Centre & Planetarium for an immersive theatre design, located in Winchester, UK.

Pioneer‘s G9 KURO is not just an evolutionary step from the G8. Pioneer claims that the black level of the G9 is 5x deeper than that of its G8. Simply put, the G9 KURO gives you a virtually perfect black. Trusted Reviews states that it is “almost impossible to see where the screen ends and the bezel begins” when the lights are off and during a dark scene.

Pioneer G9 KURO PDP-LX6090 Profile (3.66″ thick)

Look at how thin it is. It is just 93mm (3.66″) thick and its a 60″ plasma TV! Not only is the front screen performance amazing, so is the design. The G9 KURO has all of the other requisite specifications such as a pixel format of 1920 x 1080, all the video input you need and a contrast ratio that is near infinity. I hope reviews for Pioneer’s game-changing G9 KURO plasma TVs come online very soon.

Note: Trusted Reviews, for some odd reason, has the incorrect model names. They are usually right on but incorrectly used the G8 model names. The G9 KURO line is as stated in this post.

Here is a video regarding the Pioneer G9 KURO that I found that was created by AVForums:

Boy Genius Report (BGR) acquired some hot information regarding Dell‘s roadmap for its Latitude line of notebook PCs. Around November of this year, Dell is planning to introduce a convertible tablet PC, its XT2. And around the January 2009 timeframe Dell will be phasing out its current XT.

Most likely the 12.1″ LCD will sport a LED backlight and the XT2 is geared to earning Energy Star and EPEAT ratings. The chassis seems to be moving toward using magnesium alloy to make it tough and light. Finally, and I don’t know why it took so long, the XT2 will probably have a backlit keyboard.

Crave: iriver’s Spinn is a very nice looking portable multimedia player (PMP). The fact that it has analog controls is, for some reason, very tempting. I like the idea of digital superbly intertwined with analog. The digital portion is brought to you by Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode (AMOLED) display technology. The 3.2″ AMOLED screen should pop your eyes out. I am truly amazed at how beautiful some OLED screens look. I’m sure the one in iriver’s Spinn will not disappoint.

Updated 2008.07.15 1:15PM PSTLenovo‘s ThinkPad X200 just earned Laptop’s Editor’s Choice award. The lack of an optical drive didn’t curtail enthusiasm for the X200 as an “excellent lightweight notebook for mobile professionals.” The X200 is for doing what business people do on the road: checking emails, doing some Office work and then playing a bit of Solitaire. So if you’re thinking of toting the X200 to your next LAN party for a little Crysis action, think twice. On the other hand, you’ll probably have no problems getting in some WoW action. Source: Laptop via Engadget

There isn’t much information regarding either Pixel Lab Korea or its newly announced Ripple Tablet TN120R/B T8100. The Ripple Tablet sports a 12.1″ LCD with a pixel format of 1280 x 800. Pretty standard for a wide tablet PC and the specs are fairly normal as you can see in the list above. It would be nice if it turns out the Ripple Tablet PC has a LED backlit LCD, multitouch capability, broadband connection built-in, a super long battery life for an insanely great price.

Panasonic‘s PT-LB80NTU, PT-LB75NTU and PT-LW80NTU projectors have built-in WiFi capability and can allow up to 128 PCs to be connected to it simultaneously. All of them are extremely bright ranging from 2,600 to 3,200 lumens. Although the LB80 series lack in the number of pixels, a big majority of consumers are still using 1024 x 768 pixel format on their computers and most of the wide notebook PC format is currently at 1280 x 800.

Although not feather lite, the LB80 series are theoretically portable, but I wouldn’t want to lug them around during my business travels. I would want a much smaller unit or even a pico-projector.

Pacific Media Associates (PMA) just announced market share results for projectors for Taiwan. Optoma beat out Epson for the top spot in Q1’08 with 28.7% unit shipment share. A total of 17,700 projectors were shipped in Taiwan in Q1’08. Epson was #2 with 22.2% share followed by Viewsonic with 7.2% and BenQ with 7.1% share.

Optoma HD80 1080p Home Theater Projector

Optoma’s numbers are even stronger when you consider just the consumer market. Optoma took a commanding 44.2% unit shipment share followed by Epson, Panasonic and Sanyo. In the commercial (enterprise) market, Optoma was in the lead with 26.4% unit shipment share followed by Epson, Viewsonic, BenQ and Hitachi.

Optoma is targeting a 30% unit shipment share for 2008 in the commerical market as well as for the overall projection market in Taiwan. Telly Kuo, Optoma’s Asica Pacific Region VP and General Manager expects a total of 25,000 unit shipments for 2008.

There were a lot of developments in displays that were showcased during SID 2008. One of the best stuff was related to OLEDs, lower power consumption, thin profiles and LED backlights generating unheard of contrast ratios. I’ve posted about just a few of them. Here they all are for your convenience: